I learnt this song last term while visiting a youth group. It’s been in my head all week.
I love the music. I love the lyrics. I love the Saviour. Here’s the chorus:
I know you gave the world
Your only son for us
To know your name
To live within the Saviour’s love
He took my place
Knowing He´d be crucified
And You loved, You loved
A people undeserving!
Pornography is bad. Brothels are bad. Duh. Every Christian would agree. I suggested in a recent talk that catalogues and TV commercials are just as dangerous as pornography and that walking through a shopping centre can be like walking through a brothel.
We don’t just lust after flesh but we are also prone to lust after material things and stuff. The great danger of shopping centres and catalogues is that we don’t realise that they are dangerous. It’s normal to see products and want them, it’s normal to hang out at the shops and buy stuff whenever we want stuff.
Only when we understand how much our culture is shaped by consumerism, materialism, affluenza and the desire to get stuff will we understand how easy it is to be personally shaped by this mindset.
Overseas Council Australia are doing an incredible job at helping to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection throughout the world. “OCA raises funds in Australia to give to approved theological colleges in developing countries.” Not only are they training locals to preach Jesus in their own context, but they are training faculty to train locals to proclaim Jesus.
Sponsor a student. Give some cash. Proclaim Jesus. Check their website.
DMDC Update: Blogging break over. Currently finishing a number of design and writing jobs. Uploaded a bunch of talks from Term 2 (need a speaker?). Jesus is still the King.
Scott Petty spoke last night (at Senior High + 645 church) kicking off a week of prayer in preparing for connecting with the St Ives community throughout 2009. He spoke from Jonah 4 and Luke 18. In the talk he compared the prayerfulness of the persistent widow (Luke 18) with Jonah’s prayerlessness. In the talk we were challenged to see the heart of God for the 4 million people of Sydney.
But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)
We joined in the fun with CCEC people for NITE CHURCH LIVE tonight @ Avoca Beach Theatre (sweet location!). It’s the first live CD that CCEC has done, and hopefully they got some good recordings worth distributing more widely. Purchased played the first set with keyboard driven pop-tunes. Shadow Gallerywere second with their folky sound. And Jacob I loved finished off the night with some hard-driving rock.
There was a good combination of new songs with new tunes and old songs with new tunes. The songs were beautifully drenched with cross-centred lyrics. My favourite one of the night would have been the final song “Holy Sovereign Lord”. Keep an ear out for it in your church!
It was good to catch up with people we don’t see often and together praise Jesus. Shout out to my homeboy Dan for the great work he’s been doing with CCEC music for the last couple of years.
This post is true again this year! Last year they were able to find a helmet large enough for my head, this year – they can’t find one big enough!! So my beanie will have to do. Shred Hotham has kicked off well.
To God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation for ever and ever! (Eph 3:21)
My aim is to read as many books as I can on the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the last couple of years I have read quite a number because I believe in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6 that the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection is of “first importance”. I want to regularly plumb the depths of “the good news that Jesus Christ is the sinless sin bearer of all who are united to him by faith” so that I will keep believing it and preaching it.
Today I began The Great Exchange by Jerry Bridges & Bob Bevington (PDF preview). It’s a book all about 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The NIV New Testament Bible on MP3 and theNIV Old Testament Bible on MP3 are fantastic! I listened to all of Hebrews today. It only took 38 minutes, and while it doesn’t replace slow and detailed study of the Bible, it’s a fantastic way to get the big picture of whole books in the Bible. Today I noticed the word “ashamed” in Hebrews. I’ve noticed it in both Hebrews 2:11 and 11:16 before, but never in the same sitting.
In 2:11 Jesus isn’t ashamed to call Christians his “brothers” and in 11:16 God isn’t ashamed to be called “God” by his People. Incredible! God the Father and God the Son are not ashamed to bring us into their family. We are often ashamed and embarrased to call Jesus “brother” or to say we belong to “God”, yet he isn’t the embarassing family-member, we are!
Praise be to God for the “better word” spoken through Jesus’ blood and that he tasted death for his brothers so that we wouldn’t have to! Are you part of the family?
Old DMDC Favicon: Black square. NewDMDC Favicon: Gray square with big black asterisk. Simple, but I think effective. Here’s a tool for making them and here’s a tool for creating one from a pre-existing image.